Our vocations

By Tony Staley
Compass Editor

	S p e c i a l   S e c t i o n : Vocations Awareness Week 2004
	• Bridging the Gap by Bishop David A. Zubik --     'Many are called:' Let's all be vocations directors  • Profiles of the men who became priests last year     Just what kind of men become priests today?  • Angels in the 'Hood'     Chicago outreach changes lives for inner city people  • How one person made a difference for a seminarian     Support can make all the difference for those     discerning a vocation  • Deacon candidates should show background of service     'Deacons are not simply created by ordination'     • Sidebar: Deacon eligibility  • Joining a religious community is a process     Years of discernment follow a gentle invitation     • Sidebar: Signs of a call  • Norbertine finds that God is always there     God comes to us in many ways, including in the flesh  • Things have changed since the days of veils     Formation for community life has adapted more     for individuality

We will be asked to be mindful of God's call during Vocations Awareness Week, Jan. 11-17.

We share a vocation to serve God because of our Baptism. We live this call as married or single people, perhaps as parents, or as priests, deacons or members of a religious community.

Vocations Awareness Week challenges us to consider how we can better serve God. But Vocations Awareness Week especially calls us to consider vocations as a priest or religious, either for ourselves or for our children, grandchildren or friends.

Vocations to the priesthood are particularly needed because of a serious shortage of priests. New studies in the Church of Green Bay anticipate that we will have 83 active (non-retired) priests by 2010 - that's less than one priest for every two parishes.

In other words, recent parish closures and mergers are but warnings of what's ahead unless trends are reversed. And, unlike turning out more widgets at a factory, we can't just push a button and meet the need in a matter of weeks.

So what can we do? First, we must fervently pray that more young men will accept God's invitation to devote their lives to him in service to the church as celibate priests.

But that's not enough. As Christians, we believe that the Second Person of the Trinity became human, suffered, died, rose from the dead and ascended, after promising that God would send the Holy Spirit. That belief requires us to put our prayer into action by actively seeking out, recruiting and supporting young men who would be good priests from our families, parishes and workplaces. God will do his part, but we also must do our part.

Last April, Pope John Paul issued an encyclical that called the Eucharist Christ's greatest gift to the church, which it is. But this gift needs priests. It's time to call on God's help to do our part in the acceptance and appreciation of this gift.

Who will you invite, encourage and assist to consider a vocation to priesthood?